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Sep 24, 2012

Quadruple Chocolate Brownies. Over 30 Minute Risotto.

My peace lily survived while I was away - just. It took around 2 litres of water and a good 5 hours for it to perk up up though. I think I need to give it a trim over the next few days though.

Top - Soon Maternity, necklace - Red Phoenix Emporium. Go team Baby SSG, we hit the third trimester this week.

I stuck to the monochromes for my work outfit today. You can never go wrong with a horizontal black and white stripe. You just have to remember to distinguish it from convict chic by accessorising. Work went well. I managed not to get lost in the new multi-storey car park and I got lots of phone calls about how I needed to fill in more forms for my maternity leave. Returning from leave to sort out leave, not bad for a Monday afternoon.

For those of you who asked about a recipe for those quadruple chocolate brownies, I'm sorry to have to disappoint you.

Because there is no recipe, just bottles and packets. 1/3 of a cup of Mr Frangelico, the same of vegetable oil, 1 egg and 1 packet of Mr Ghiradelli triple chocolate brownie mix is all you need for the batter.

Which I then topped with a few squares of Ms Ghiradelli dark chocolate (there were too many misters in that last paragraph) broken up and placed artfully over the batter.

Then simply bake at 180C for about 45 minutes and try to let them cool before eating....

It wasn't all culinary slackness over the weekend. I finally tried a recipe from Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals. With the emphasis on the singular, I didn't even try a whole meal because it was Sunday night and I was recovering from a marathon session of Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant on MTV. But those are tales for another blog post. The oozy mushroom risotto recipe looked especially good for a Sunday dinner so I started with it.

I found some fancy arborio rice and some dried mushrooms and got to work on the recipe.

50 minutes later...

Jamie made it look so easy. Even with the clock ticking and the guitar riffs on the show, Jamie barely breaks a sweat. As I made my risotto, I couldn't get any of that soundtrack out of my head and it made me a little twitchy to be honest. The risotto alone took around 50 minutes to cook and there was at least 15 minutes of cleaning up as well.

It was worth it though. I added some peas and chopped asparagus spears in with the fresh mushrooms which added some colour to the risotto. Also, Jamie's trick of adding lemon juice towards the end with the butter and parmesan really lifted the dish in terms of taste and texture.

www.telegraph.co.uk

I'm so happy that Homeland won as many Emmys as it did. Claire Danes and Damian Lewis were both perfectly brilliant in their roles. As a person who normally doesn't get too excited about political dramas, both the acting and the script had me from the beginning of the first season. And also Barack Obama, it seems. The President apparently once told Damian Lewis that he was such a big fan of the programme that it was his thing to watch in his downtime when the rest of the world assumed he was off doing more Presidential things. I can't wait for season two to premiere in Australia.

Until then, I have October 4 to look forward to.

www.news.com.au

Which is when Brynne Edelsten's 'My Bedazzled Life' debuts on Channel 7. I've been watching the clips and Brynne is reality TV gold. She's so much fun to watch. I'm definitely saving the date.

Jamie never cleans up and has professional chef knife skills. Those two reasons alone add heaps of time. My brother-in-law calls the book "Jamie's 60 minute meals" and I think that is definitely more accurate.Those brownies look amazing. Damn this diet I'm on.